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Comment Re:Energy balance over temperature (Score 1) 442

Funny, because the conclusion of the cited article looks a bit different:

We find a reduction of 0.31±0.21 Wm2 in No between the late 1990s and the mid-2000s which may have contributed to the recent slowdown in global surface warming. This is consistent with minor volcanoes [Solomon et al., 2011; Fyfe et al., 2013; Haywood et al., 2014; Santer et al., 2014], an extended and deeper solar minimum [Lean, 2009; Kaufmann et al., 2011], and possible nitrate and indirect aerosol effects

Slowdown in global surface warming, it's not reduction. If you look at the graphics you see that temperature, except for some minor exception, is always growing. So instead of worrying about the climate, we can just hope in some major vulcan activity....

Go back to high school and retake reading comprehension and basic physics please. I know that is far too rude and confrontational, but it doesn't sound like you read my post at all, which is tiresome.

I stated myself that surface temperature has been consistently rising. I and anyone trusting the meteorology community agrees that even the current 'slowdown' is as you reference, a matter of warming but at a slower rate than previously and than expected.

I don't comprehend where you ever got the notion I believed or claimed otherwise? I pointed out that the rate of net energy/radiation coming into the planet is the more important and direct measure. The basic physics of the greenhouse effect is trapping incoming radiation so that more is coming in than going out. The resulting extra energy leads to warming. What I observed and you again reference yourself in your quote of the article is that the changes to that energy imbalance at t edge of space, is dominated by volcanic activity since the 60s. With the major increases we've contributed to CO2 contributions in that same time, that gives some hope things aren't as bleak as many fear mongers wish. With no notable trend in the energy imbalance in the whole Ceres results of the last decade and a half, we certainly seem less likely to be facing catastrophic sensitivity to CO2. The increases of a decade and a half being in essence undetectable in the core measure of changes to the energy imbalance.

Comment Energy balance over temperature (Score 4, Informative) 442

The basic physics of climate change is that increasing levels of gases trap more energy from the sun, increasing the amount of energy in our atmosphere and climate system. We know by and large, most of the energy is stored in the oceans as water holds energy much better than gases in the air.

With such a simple observation, I'd like to make the observation that it seems too few of the IPCC guys pushing for policy stuff are paying any attention to the energy budget. Instead, we have the only basis scientifically being that the average surface temperature is warming, and CO2 levels are rising and we are the ones pushing them up. That's all well and good, and they are important observations. About 30 years ago though we started sending up satellites to measure incoming and outgoing radiation. The ERBS and CERES programs from NASA have given us direct measurements of trends in the overall energy balance at the edge of space. The most direct measurement of global warming that we can have. The summary from each program, has let us find a decade level average energy imbalance, and we've found it is in good or at least general agreement with energy levels measured via Ocean Heat Content observations.

Here's the important bit though. As the IPCC's most recent AR has observed, the satellite measurements show that for the duration of the CERES project, there has been NO TREND in the energy imbalance. The earlier ERBS data showed the same as well. Our satellite measurements have shown significant and very steady trends in energy balance cycling monthly, but the average over the years and decades we've measured is just a steady and consistent average neither shifting noticeably up or down. Meanwhile, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere over that same time have climbed like nobody's business. All our models and expectation for X degrees of warming for so much CO2 kinda hinges pretty heavy on CO2 pushing up the energy imbalance. If it's not, and observations suggest that. We may not need to be so worried as some of the panic ridden crowd wants.

Before I get citation needed shoved down my throat, here's a peer reviewed journal article published in Geophysical Research Letters. It is comparing observed atmosphere energy imbalance to the CMIP5 model runs. It finds good agreement, but also makes the very notable observation that the energy imbalance trend is dominated by volcanic activity(ie NOT the CO2 levels that are higher than they've been in millenia). Full abstract:
Observational analyses of running 5 year ocean heat content trends (Ht) and net downward top of atmosphere radiation (N) are significantly correlated (r~0.6) from 1960 to 1999, but a spike in Ht in the early 2000s is likely spurious since it is inconsistent with estimates of N from both satellite observations and climate model simulations. Variations in N between 1960 and 2000 were dominated by volcanic eruptions and are well simulated by the ensemble mean of coupled models from the Fifth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). We find an observation-based reduction in N of 0.31±0.21Wm2 between 1999 and 2005 that potentially contributed to the recent warming slowdown, but the relative roles of external forcing and internal variability remain unclear. While present-day anomalies of N in the CMIP5 ensemble mean and observations agree, this may be due to a cancelation of errors in outgoing longwave and absorbed solar radiation.

Comment Re: Countries without nuclear weapons get invaded (Score 1) 228

Ukraine willingly gave up (as in "sold") most of its arsenal period. They didn't do ot because they were nice people (only Poles are less friendly), but because they couldn't afford the maintenance and needed money to steal. It has been one of most corrupt countries in the world for over 20 years - since they became an actual state.

Thanks for agreeing and confirming the only facts I pointed out:
Ukraine willingly gave up it's nuclear arsenal.
Russia is now invading Ukraine.

Comment Re:Countries without nuclear weapons get invaded (Score 1) 228

What country flew an airplane into any U.S. building? Terrorist group of Saudis, who were former apid CIA agents in Soviet-Afghanistan war, did that. Maybe our CIA should cut that kind of shit out, eh?

Then you bring up WMD, Saddam had no working WMD nor WMD program when US invaded. What he did have were long-expired weapons with UN tags on them, that were built with dual-use tech and billions of dollars given to him by ...wait for it..the United States of America. Because at the time he was our bestest pal, even made an honorary citizen of Detroit by the mayor for his donations to church, etc.

I'd second the SA blame for 911, but even more directly responsible than them would have to be Pakistan.

The American support for the mujahideen during the Soviet-Afghan times wasn't solely to Al Qaida chaps, but to anyone willing to fight the Russians, including Al Qaida and the Taliban and the Afghan Northern Alliance folks that were their enemies. It's not lying per se to claim that America supported people that would later become key players in the Taliban and Al Qaida, but it's certainly less than half of the truth.

Pakistan however had continued to support the Taliban right on through. Part of Pakistan's war planning against India was 'strategic depth' into Afghanistan where the friendly and allied Taliban forces gave room for them to move into and operate alongside. The Taliban being as largely uneducated and prone to fanatacism as they were made Al Qaida a moderate voice for Pakistan to work with the Taliban through as well. Pakistan's ISI(equivalent of the CIA) was deeply, deeply in bed with the Taliban and Al Qaida. When the towers went down, the American response was who could have or might have done this? The immediate response in tribal Pakistan was different and two fold. First, shock that Bin Laden actually went through with it and actually did it. The second, was when the Americans go to war with the Taliban, whose side will Pakistan take, and bets where 50/50.

Make no mistake, the Afghan war was 100% about Pakistan's response and ensuring that it and it's nuclear arsenal took sides against jihadists and severed it's buddy, buddy relationship with them. It was never stated outright publicly though, because that would be impolite and push Pakistan to refusing on principal, which it very nearly did anyways.

Comment Re:Countries without nuclear weapons get invaded (Score 1) 228

Perhaps they would stop building chemical or biological WMDs if we would stop killing those that decide to cooperate and indeed put an end to their WMD programs.

The one positive thing to come out of the Iraq war was that Qaddafi did put an end to his WMD programs, out of fear that he would be next. Look how he was rewarded. That episode guaranteed that no tin horn dictator will EVER give up their WMD program.

Indeed. And all Gadhafi had done was use his military to crush and murder peaceful protests, and when that turned ugly, promising to 'exterminate the cockroaches house by house'. Stopping him was certainly an unjustifiable failure of international relations.

Comment Re:Countries without nuclear weapons get invaded (Score 3, Insightful) 228

Often by the United States of America or other western powers. When nations see that having a nuke prevents other nations from toppling them, nukes become vital for stability.

Perhaps we should stop driving them towards nuclear weapons by invading them for oil and minerals.

Perhaps the most salient point was made in another thread. The Ukraine, as one of the only nations to ever willingly give up a nuclear arsenal, is in the process of being invaded. I'm not sure if you care about the distinction that in this case it is Russia doing the invading and not the evil America or her western allies.

Comment Re:Countries without nuclear weapons get invaded (Score 1) 228

Often by the United States of America or other western powers. When nations see that having a nuke prevents other nations from toppling them, nukes become vital for stability.

Perhaps we should stop driving them towards nuclear weapons by invading them for oil and minerals.

So if you could travel back in time, you'd undo recent interventions. You would go back and change things so that today in your preferred reality, Afghanistan is still ruled by the Taliban with Bin Laden still living as their guest, Gadhafi still ruling Libya after completing the genocide he promised his opponents, and Saddam still ruling Iraq.

Comment Re:Wait... what? (Score 1) 228

This is just another way to say "The US is bad and everyone else is oh-so-wonderful" which is a popular theme around /.

I'm sorry America can't be as moral and upright as North Korea, Cuba, Russia, Iran, and all the other paragons of virtue that you love so much.

Well said and amen to that. American bad behaviour can't be looked at in a vacuum, you have to compare it to alternatives and look at the corresponding actions of other major players. Otherwise your just crying that the world is a bad and cruel place...

Comment Re:That makes me take him MORE seriously (Score 1) 573

"One strike, you're out Greenpeace!"

Thanks for the 45 years of environmental activism, it was nice knowin' ye.

(I assume you hold companies to the same standard.)

One strike?

45 years of activism?

Let's look at that activism, or more specifically 2 of the biggest issues they are 'working' on.

1. Anti-GMO activism and fear mongering. Despite the absence of any scientific basis for it and a mass of scientific evidence showing GMO crops are no more dangerous than their non-GMO counter parts Greenpeace is fighting hard to get them banned. A campaign of misinformation and fear mongering on the subject is their trademark. What's worse, in reality GMO crops have changed Ag practices to use much safer pesticides and in many cases fewer pesticides, but Greenpeace is steadfastly against it.

2.Anti-Nuclear power lobbying. They've been doing this since their founding, but what really compounds the matter is that Greenpeace of late has at the exact same time been lobbying hard for a reduction of CO2 emissions. I'm afraid a pretty basic litmus test to me is that if you oppose nuclear power AND demand a reduction in CO2 emissions sooner than later, you most likely don't know what your about. When putting forward activist campaigns on both fronts you are causing harm on both fronts by condemning one of the best existing solutions to a problem you purportedly care about. That just makes people willing to listen to both fronts turn around and stop caring when they follow both campaigns to their inevitable conclusions.

Comment Re:Politicians will be stupid but scientists/techn (Score 1) 356

> Sure, it is technically correct

No it's not.

There are dozens upon dozens of reports, all easily accessible on the internet, that state in no uncertain terms that the US grid is perfectly capable of handing lots and lots of intermittent power. The last report I read, now outdated as its from 2012, said that California was able to use up to 100% embedded PV. That means you could install PV on everyone's home and office to net meter to zero and the grid would handle it just fine.

http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/NR/rdonlyres/8A822C08-A56C-4674-A5D2-099E48B41160/0/LDPVPotentialReportMarch2012.pdf

I don't much care how much you protest, night time is gonna be wanting for power if that's your install base. Either that, or somebody is gonna be spending a lot of money storing the solar energy generated during the day for use overnight. THAT cost is certainly excluded in current solar price listings.

Comment Re: Models compared to reality (Score 1) 279

Just checked and it is in a different chapter. The IPCC 5th assessment has the observed energy balance discussed in Chapter 2: Observations: Surface and Atmosphere. The summary is as follows:

Satellite records of top of the atmosphere radiation fluxes have
been substantially extended since AR4, and it is unlikely that
significant trends exist in global and tropical radiation budgets
since 2000.

Given the significant increase in measured anthropogenic GHGs over that same time frame and the estimated forcing(greenhouse effect), we should be a little surprised at this result. More importantly, we should be seriously expecting the energy imbalance to track more closely over time in the future and in the long term. If the non trend stretches into a second decade, I expect a whole lot of new research into that to dominate. Our modelling exercises will be rather irrelevant if the primary input(forcings/energy imbalance) stops matching with observations.

Comment Re: Models compared to reality (Score 1) 279

I'll keep an eye out for "energy imbalance" while reading the pdf(s?), but I *do* wonder how they measure that. Temperature I can understand, but energy imbalance seems like something that would either need to be estimated, or derived from a model.

You'll find it at the top of chapter even in the bullet pointed summary/overview, with details later in the doc. Might be in a different chapter/pdf of the IPCC report, but it's based not on the models but from the CERES and other satellite top of atmosphere direct measurements of radiation in vs radiation out. If you go to the IPCC site and pull up the 5th assessment report it's in one of the chapters from the "Basic Science" report. The most important and real measure of our impact through CO2 emissions is going to show up most clearly here. As noted, temperature is gonna fluctuate a lot based on how much energy the oceans are absorbing/releasing but the radiation in and out imbalance is where the actual greenhouse effect is truly acting and taking place.

Comment Re: Models compared to reality (Score 1) 279

The first link is to an image of fig 11.9 from page 981 of the IPCC report in the second link. I thought I'd attributed as from the IPCC report prior but might've missed it. That's the page though for more info on the first link.

The last decade being warming slower than expected has had explanations, but the more important metric of global energy imbalance hasn't trended up/down that decade either and the oceans have little to do with that end.

Comment Re:Models compared to reality (Score 1) 279

The climate models they are looking at do make predictions on the year to year stuff, but mainly as trends, but at an accuracy levels that's about as good as your local weatherman predicting weather 10 days from now. They can do it, but if you rely on it you are a fool because noise and random events have more local bearing than the trend. But once you get out to looking at climate change at the decade level the noise in the system is mitigated and the real data and trends become apparent ... even at that the models are an estimation. There are IMO massive aspects of climate change that the models don't address because the systems aren't fully understood and in some case aren't understood at all.

I think I gave your post too much credit with my previous response. Your chunk here is decrying the state of the art climate models as severely as anyone I've heard...

Worst case is the model vastly underestimate the impacts of these inputs and in fact the consequences of global climate change are far more severe than predicted. For example, not a single model predicts much more than a gradual but small decline in the glaciers in Antarctica which will cause relatively minor sea level increases. If the models are wrong and in reality those glaciers melt, much of the worlds population is going to be displaced as sea levels increase 100's of feet (30+ meters).

If we are going to just entirely through out all the models and all of climate science we can claim whatever pleases us. Might as well include that we might be going into an ice age too. Then we can fret over what catastrophic glaciation we'll face if we don't maintain our CO2 emissions. Or we could, you know, stick with the scientific method and data...

Some say the models are alarmist. Others fear they aren't alarmist enough. Only time will really show how good the models are... But if the models predictions are dire at that point and we haven't made reductions in C02 levels by that time, we may have already damned ourselves and our grandchildren to the worst climate change can offer. And that worst is a pretty scary future where humanity destroys itself in a fight over dwindling food and resources and displaced people.

So you're argument is in essence that because of our ignorance of the consequences of actions, we should obviously be taking the action you recommend? Go ahead and start your own cult then, but don't come crying to anyone when the scientific community rejects all your hocus pocus as being nothing more than your own personal whim and fancy.

Comment Re:Models compared to reality (Score 1) 279

Even if it was true, a decade is literally a single data point in climate change analysis. Climate change is not local weather, it's not monthly predictions or even year to year values. About the smallest relative measure of time used in studying global climate change is roughly a decade. Any average data point less than a decade has a higher probability of being noise than actual average climate data. The climate models they are looking at do make predictions on the year to year stuff, but mainly as trends, but at an accuracy levels that's about as good as your local weatherman predicting weather 10 days from now. They can do it, but if you rely on it you are a fool because noise and random events have more local bearing than the trend. But once you get out to looking at climate change at the decade level the noise in the system is mitigated and the real data and trends become apparent. At that decade level the planet has been warming consistently and at an increasing rate since the industrial revolution.

And even at that the models are an estimation. There are IMO massive aspects of climate change that the models don't address because the systems aren't fully understood and in some case aren't understood at all. Inter-ocean currents that help regulate global temperatures are not understood very well, certainly not the same level as say wind patterns. Though we understand the basic mechanism we don't really understand the extent or how the climate change will affect them. As a result there are portions of the models inputs that are simply guesswork and will be refined as time goes on and more data is developed that will allow them to better tune the models. That in fact is the scariest thing about climate change, which is that our models could be completely wrong, in the wrong direction. Best case scenario is the oceans are able to absorb much of the additional heat with very little impact to global climate. Worst case is the model vastly underestimate the impacts of these inputs and in fact the consequences of global climate change are far more severe than predicted. For example, not a single model predicts much more than a gradual but small decline in the glaciers in Antarctica which will cause relatively minor sea level increases. If the models are wrong and in reality those glaciers melt, much of the worlds population is going to be displaced as sea levels increase 100's of feet (30+ meters).

Some say the models are alarmist. Others fear they aren't alarmist enough. Only time will really show how good the models are. But don't think even a decade of data contradictory to the models (not that there is mind you, that's a common myth others have addressed) is relevant, because a single data point isn't a prediction of a trend or even useful as an evaluation of the predictions. By the time 2030 rolls around we'll have tuned the models to be pretty good predictors, likely even of year to year trends. But if the models predictions are dire at that point and we haven't made reductions in C02 levels by that time, we may have already damned ourselves and our grandchildren to the worst climate change can offer. And that worst is a pretty scary future where humanity destroys itself in a fight over dwindling food and resources and displaced people.

"Even if this were true?", this is from the IPCC report, you know, the team that was awarded a noble prize for their work on climate change. And you are right, in climate change a decade should be viewed as a single data point. When it comes to assessing modern climate models, we have only that one data point. So it can also be viewed as 100% of the data points we have. It also means the instrumental record we compare our models to, have a grand total of 11-12 data points to compare to.

Overall, if the models are being assessed, there's an awfull lot of reason to be cautious about placing to high a confidence in something we are just starting out with and still have serious challenges comparing/testing our results from.

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